Fuzz In The Summer
by Birchtail
Summary: It's summer, and Kurt is shedding-he can't sleep because of the heat. What will happen when he finds a fellow summer insomniac? Semi-Kurtty.


It was a hot summer night, and Kurt Wagner couldn't sleep.

Suffice to say that that did not bode well for the residents of the Xavier Institute. Especially a certain girl surnamed Pryde.

...

Kitty screamed and sat straight up in bed a mysteriously blue, fuzzy apparition appeared in front of her door. "Gah! Who are you!" she shrieked before she had a chance to recognize him.  
"Kurt!" Kitty yelled. "Get to bed," she mumbled as she pulled the covers over her head. In reality, she hadn't been sleeping either; the night was far too hot and the upper parts of the Institute didn't have very good air conditioning. "You're shedding all over the place!" It may have been a lame excuse, but it was certainly a true one. Kurt shed his fur a lot in the summer, but especially when it was hot. He looked down at the floor self-consciously. There was indeed a thin sheen of blue fur scattered on the carpet where he stood.  
"I can't sleep," admitted the furry mutant, assuming a crouching pose and bounding over to the window. "Can you?"  
"No, me neither," she confessed. _Does he have something in mind?_  
"Well... would you like to go on an adventure?" Kurt inquired.  
"What kind of adventure?" asked Kitty, trying and failing to sound utterly uninterested.  
"The fun kind." He bounded agilely to the balcony outside her window, expectantly waiting for her reply.  
"I guess so... but where are we going?" she asked as Kurt teleported over to where she was standing beside her bed and teleported her out to the balcony.  
"There!" He pointed to the small forest near the Institute. Sometimes, Logan took them there to train.  
Kitty gave him the look. "You're crazy! Logan will kill us!" she hissed.  
"I've always wanted to know what it was like to die," commented Kurt, thoughtfully resting his head on one of his three-fingered hands as he crouched on the balcony.  
"Deep," the phaser remarked, disgust and laughter battling for the mastery in her voice.  
"C'mon, Kitty! It'll be fun, and I'm bored out of my mind!"  
She shrugged. "All right, but make sure to tell Logan to only chop off your head when we get back. He won't be happy; it's his training ground, after all, and the middle of the night."  
"He'll never know." Kurt grinned at her and leapt from the edge of the balcony railing, hanging off the edge by his tail. "Besides, it'll have saved us from certain insanity."  
Kitty couldn't help but admit to herself that she wanted to go. After all, which was better: a sleepless night spent running around in the forest, or a sleepless night spent tossing and turning in bed?  
She phased a hand through the balcony's railing bars to put on the flat end of Kurt's tail. He grinned and gave her a thumbs-up from his upside-down position. _At least I'm making Kurt happy,_ she thought, just before they disappeared in a puff of sulfur-tainted smoke.

...

The blue mutant reappeared in the forest within half a second, but in rather an awkward pose. Kitty was still holding on to one of his two toes, and he was flat out in the ground in a second when she stood up and forgot to let go.  
"Aw, sorry, Kurt!" He shook his head, which was still spinning a bit. "I'll live," he told her, smiling again.  
"You _are _kinda durable." she replied.  
Suddenly, Kurt put a hand on her shoulder. They were twenty feet away, just outside the forest, in the amount of time it takes to say 'teleport.'  
"What are you doing!" asked Kitty, rather loudly.  
"Shh." Kurt put a finger to his lips. "I saw someone," he informed her, his voice sounding a bit worried, but not too much so.  
"Who?" Kitty asked, too loud again.  
"Quieter, Kitty! I don't know." he whispered, casting a furtive glance toward the forest. Kitty gasped. "There it is!"  
"I told you!" Kurt didn't even bother to ask her if she wanted a closer look. They reappeared near the place where they had both seen the shadow.  
"It's an intruder," the fuzzy mutant whispered to the phaser. Her eyes opened wide. _We haven't had any trouble lately! Who could it be? _  
The shadow flashed between a couple trees at the edge of the forest.  
"There he is!" Kitty whispered back, quite unnecessarily. Kurt nodded. "Whoa, he looks strong. We might have some trouble with him. Kitty, you should stay back."  
The phaser rolled her eyes. _Cue the noble deed. _"I'll go with you. I can take care of myself, and you're a little..." she looked at his face, which was a little drawn, "out of it."  
"I'm sorry! I can't help it that I have to molt!"  
Kitty waved her hand dismissively. "Back to important stuff."  
The shadow moved further into the trees, heading straight for them. They watched as the mysterious figure looked at one of the training-ground weapons. It was turned off now, of course, so he reached out a hand and slowly unscrewed it from its moorings, then picked it up to squint down the barrel. He lifted it into the moonlight in an attempt to see better, evidently fascinated with the thing.  
"He might be trying to steal it," whispered an excited Kurt to Kitty.  
"Yeah," she responded, her voice awed. "But why?"  
"Only one way to find out," said Kurt, putting out a hand to grab hers.  
"Hey, fuzzy guy! Where are your manners?"  
He made a face. "May I please teleport you to capture this intruder, milady?" The furred mutant put his tail in her hand with a flourish.  
"Yes, sir." Kitty gripped the tail, and the next second, they were on the intruder's back. Kurt's tail was at the ready, circled loosely around the mystery figure's neck. Kitty leapt off the man's back the instant after they appeared on it, fully prepared to use her phasing powers to attack and defend.  
"Surrender, intruder!" said Kurt, his voice as loud, firm, and decidedly heroic as it ever had been.  
"Kurt? Kitty?"  
A beam of moonlight fell through the trees, illuminating the battle-ready threesome.  
_"Logan?" _Kitty shrieked. Kurt rapidly let go of the man's neck, teleporting to stand next to Kitty in the next second.  
"Uh, sorry?" Kurt put his hands out apologetically.  
"I-um-grrr." Logan evidently didn't know what to say. It took him a minute to regain his wits. "I should-I should send you both to the professor!"  
"We-we couldn't sleep," Kitty lamely excused.  
Logan growled. "You going to turn us in?" inquired Kurt, his head hanging low.  
Their trainer growled again.

"No," he muttered, under his breath.

...

_The next day..._

"Logan was just caught in the act, wasn't he?" Kurt asked Kitty. They were the only ones up at this early hour, filling their hungry stomachs with crackers and cheese.  
"Rare thing, that." Kitty chuckled. "By the way, what was he doing?"  
"He was really interested in those training weapons-the other day, I hear, one actually hit him."  
Kitty gasped in mock horror. "Logan was hit? Boy, he must have been tired!"  
"No, actually. These trainers are new and improved." Kurt grinned mischievously.  
"What do you mean?" she asked, curious now.  
"Well, Berserker couldn't sleep last night... he changed a few things." His smile grew even more mischevious.  
"Like how it aimed, right." Kitty wiped her eyes, her shoulders silently shaking with laughter. "May Logan _never _find that out, for both your and Berserker's sakes."  
"Oh, he won't. Berserker fixed it after training that day. Just wanted to see Logan beat a bit for once."  
Kitty collapsed on the table in silent laughter.

Scott Summers walked into the kitchen. They both looked up, shock showing clearly on their faces, though Scott wouldn't have any idea of what they'd been up to.  
"Man, Kurt, you look like you're boiling under all that fur! Maybe you would sleep better and wouldn't have to get up so early if you did something about it."  
Kitty barely had time to hear him before his words set her off again.  
_Ah, Scott. If only you knew how much the loss of his fur would mean to us all. _

**A/N: Yes, short, I know. But hey, it's a oneshot. **  
**Please review!**


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